Although there is an increasing interest in early diagnosis to avoid the advancement of severe mental health disorders like schizophrenia and recurring major depression, understanding of risk factors and developmental trajectories has yet to be substantially applied to clinical practice and public health. Psychiatry has typically focused on the treatment and prevention of disease progression and impairment in those who already have a mental disorder (i.e., tertiary prevention). While many medical disciplines have teamed up with public education and health organizations to lower risk factors for illnesses like myocardial infarction, mental health prevention projects have gotten significantly less attention. Scientific evidence from other fields of medicine, combined with a growing understanding of developmental risk factors that precede psychiatric illness and preliminary findings supporting preventive interventions, suggest that our field could move toward the more ambitious goals of universal vulnerability prevention, selective vulnerability prevention in high-risk subgroups, and indicated prevention of full or more severe illness in individuals already showing early signs of illness.
